Rent The Night (1961)

Unique film - The Night review by Oli

La Notte is quite a unique film really, even by Antonionis high standards, I wouldn't even say I've really began to understood his cinema style yet but at the same time I'll say I'm starting to because I see the little things that make his films so magical, going into this I'd seen Blow Up and L'Avventura (Blow Up I loved, L'Avventura I found a hard watch), this one features two lovers played superbly by Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni who seem to have hit a hard part in their marriage and as the film unfolds you begin to see the details within this marriage and why it unravels. It his focused mainly on movement and expression (like L'Avventura was a lot) you see the dissatisfaction in Moreaus movements, and in Mastroiannis advances to another woman. Overall I thought it was quite unique and definitely one I'd rewatch sometime in the future, maybe even soon as I have 2 more rentals to watch and might decide to fit it in again!

Italian cinema is quite a broad world to discover, I'm mostly familiar with Federico Fellini, so Antonioni is still quite new to me, but I'm definitely beginning to understand why he is so popular, I'd put it into the slow cinema category, it takes getting used to (I found this and L'Avventura at times seemed to be very long watches) but if you do then you have a superb fascinating world to discover, Antonioni always knows the right image to focus on and in this film he uses it to devastating effect.